


Somewhere, Just Not Here (The Five Months and Thirteen Days Remix)

by sahiya



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:03:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It did no good to think of fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere, Just Not Here (The Five Months and Thirteen Days Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta fuzzyboo03. This is a remix of sambethe's lovely [Heliacal Rising](http://sambethe.livejournal.com/46440.html).

Remus sat on the back step of the Burrow, cigarette dangling from his limp fingertips. He could hear the laughter in the house behind him - the twins, howling about something, punctuated by a squeal of laughter from Ginny and a sharp reproof in Molly's voice. Remus winced. He'd caught Molly frowning at him over the pudding, undoubtedly annoyed at him for not being properly festive on Harry's birthday, but the truth was that Remus found it difficult to feel festive at all these days and pretending required a great deal of his very limited energy. No reason the rest of them should suffer, though, so after dinner he'd taken himself off. He'd not gone far, just in case Harry started wondering where he was, but he wanted to get away for a little while.

He raised the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. _I thought you had given those up?_ Remus smiled, tight and small, closed his eyes, and expelled the smoke into the warm night air.

"I didn't know you smoked."

Startled, he turned his head, and found Harry standing behind him, leaning against the doorjamb. He opened his mouth to respond with "I don't," then realized that Harry was neither two, nor stupid. He shrugged instead. "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I seem unable to make up my mind about these things," he said, with a smile that twisted along with his heart. _Oh yes_, whispered Sirius's voice in his ear, _that's exactly how I'd describe you - irresolute, fickle, and decidedly inconsistent._

Harry crouched down the step beside him and held out his hand.

"I think not," Remus said, raising his eyebrows.

"I can buy them myself now, you know."

"I'm well aware." James's son was sixteen. Remus suppressed a shiver and wished, for perhaps the tenth time that evening, that Sirius were here. He would appreciate how deeply strange that was.

He'd also have let Harry try the cigarette.

Remus sighed, glanced over his shoulder to make sure Molly wasn't anywhere in the vicinity, and handed it over. Harry looked startled, then gave him a quick smile and accepted it before Remus had the chance to change his mind. He balanced it between two fingers, eyed it sort of cross-eyed - Remus had to swallow a laugh - and took a drag.

And immediately started to choke on the smoke. Remus grinned and held out his hand. Harry turned the cigarette over willingly even as he continued to cough. "That is foul," he managed at last, swiping at his tearing eyes. "And you like that?"

Remus shrugged. "Liked the image when I was younger. Now . . ." He shrugged again. "Habit." Not to mention some good, old-fashioned self-torment. _I have half a mind to leave you out here with nothing but your filthy cigarettes for company._ Remus swallowed.

"Did Sirius smoke?"

Remus glanced at Harry sharply, startled. But Harry merely looked curious. Remus shook his head. "Not really. Sometimes with me, but that wasn't his vice." He took another drag, exhaled, and wondered if he should ask. It was the poor kid's birthday, but he was out here and not inside at the party, which only seemed to be getting louder. He'd brought Sirius up, not Remus. What the hell.

"How are you . . ." Remus paused and tapped the cigarette so the ashes fell down into the flowerbed where Molly wouldn't find them. "How are you doing?" he finished at last.

Harry gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Okay." He paused. "No, actually. Not so good. Better. But . . . you know." He didn't say this as a typical teenage way of evading the end of a sentence, Remus thought, but as a statement. Remus knew.

"Yes," he said quietly.

"You?"

"The same as you, more or less."

Harry was quiet for a minute. Remus smoked the cigarette slowly. It was more than habit, he admitted to himself. There weren't that many things in his life that felt good these days. At last Harry cleared his throat and said, voice shaking ever so slightly, "I know it's no use talking about _fair_, but sometimes, Remus, it just -"

"I know," Remus said softly. He and Sirius had had six months. Less than that, really. It had been five months and thirteen days from Christmas Eve to the night at the Ministry. But Harry was right. It did no good to think of fair. And if Remus started down that road he would never come to the end of it, only go on and on until his life was a wreckage of what-ifs and regrets.

He used an _Evanesco_ to put out the cigarette and banished it. He looked at Harry, sitting slumped on the stoop, and then tilted his head back. The stars glittered overhead, like they hadn't that night in London. "Come on," he said, standing and holding his hand out. "Up!"

Harry let Remus haul him off the stoop. "Where are we going?"

"Just out into the yard." _Don't worry, I'm not planning to escape from my cage._ Remus sighed to himself.

Harry followed him out into the center of the garden. Remus sat down in the grass, lush even in this driest of summers, and Harry sat down behind him so they were back to back, leaning against each other, holding each other up. Remus dug his cigarette pack out of his pocket and slipped his wand out of his sleeve to light another one. He blew the first lungful of smoke up toward the sky, closed his eyes, and remembered how he had felt that night - the cold December air against his back, the orange wash of London lights overhead, and the warmth of Sirius, pressed up against his chest. He'd had trouble breathing with Sirius so close.

Now, as he had then in order to distract himself from his thoughts, Remus asked, "What are you looking at?"

"I dunno. You're the one who dragged me out here. What should I be looking at?"

Teenagers. Remus rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Whatever you like. You must be looking at something though."

He heard Harry sigh and felt him tip his head back so it rested against Remus's shoulder. He didn't answer immediately, and when he did, Remus had to strain to hear him. "His star. Still up there."

Remus smiled to himself. "Indeed. It disappears, though, for a few months each year."

"That's right. Sinistra told us that. I'd forgotten it."

"Christmas Eve," Remus began, and then stopped.

He felt Harry turn his head. "Remus?"

"Christmas Eve, he and I sat out behind Grimmauld Place like this." Well, not quite. For a moment, Remus could swear he felt phantom fingers stroking the outside of his thigh, so softly. "He told me that in Egypt, his star vanishes for seventy days. It's linked to the benu, the bird of creation, and during the Middle Kingdom its reappearance marked the start of the new year. Some Greeks thought the benu was a bit like the phoenix."

"Really?"

Remus nodded. "He said," he swallowed, "he said he'd always thought more about the dog side of the myth, but lately he'd been thinking about the bird part, because he felt like that was something he could do - begin anew. If, if only he had . . ." Remus's voice faltered.

"Time," Harry finished softly.

"Yes," Remus sighed. "Oh, Padfoot." He squeezed his eyes shut and raised the cigarette to his lips, but nothing happened. He'd let it go out.

Harry's hand found his in the grass, not quite casually. "I miss him."

"Me too," Remus said roughly. "Every day."

"But he's . . . somewhere. I heard them, beyond the Veil. He's somewhere, starting over. Just not - not here."

Remus nodded. It was a comfort, he supposed, that he could believe that without a doubt. Muggles never knew for sure, but wizards did - there was a soul, and when you died, you went on. No one knew where, of course, but it was, as Harry said, somewhere.

This didn't help much when Remus wanted Sirius here, with him. He wanted him in his bed at night, hogging the covers. He wanted him to laugh with and smoke with and cry with and make love with. He wanted him on the full moons, when Moony stole his mind and his humanity and he had no one to keep him sane and remind him who he was. He wanted him after, when he was ill and alone.

Knowing he was somewhere was something, but Remus couldn't pretend it was enough.

The door to the Burrow banged open. "Harry?" Molly called.

"Right here, Mrs. Weasley."

"People are leaving, dear."

"Okay. I'll be right there."

The door banged shut. Remus felt Harry sigh. "Inside then?" Remus suggested.

"Yeah, I reckon I should."

They clambered to their feet. Remus banished the second cigarette butt and turned to go in, but Harry stopped him. "Look, it's not my business or anything, but you and Sirius - you were, er -"

"Yes, we were."

"Oh." Harry sounded surprised, even though he'd guessed. "I thought so. Or, well, Hermione thought so." He looked down at the ground, near their feet. Remus waited. "I'm glad," Harry said at last, and his voice was steady even if he didn't look at Remus when he said it. "That he got to have that. With you."

Remus nodded. "So am I."

And he was, he realized, though it hurt to have had it and lost. They'd had each other and he'd let himself enjoy it without question for five months and thirteen days. It wasn't enough and it never would be, but at least it was something.

He followed Harry into the house.

_Fin._


End file.
